What do other GB users do with their regular fills: set or add? I have mine on Add right now because I wanted my paycheck to predictibly allocate. But now I’m wondering if Set would be more useful for my monthly expenses. If I spend less, it would automatically sweep the overflow into my savings envelope. Now I would have to do that manually. But maybe manual is better since it would give me more control. I’m interested to hear what other users do and why.
I personally choose to use add for all my envelopes. I like the control I have with this and many of my envelope amounts will vary month to month so if I have more in a given envelope than my budget that works good when I end up going over my budget in a particular month.
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I manually fill my Envelopes each month, rather than scheduling a fill, so I often do a mix of add and set. For example, I’ll often set my PG&E Envelope to match the new bill amount, or I’ll add the budgeted amount to Eating Out if there are leftovers from the previous month that I want to keep.
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I also use both, although I’m primarily a Set person. For my main categories (Dining Out, Entertainment, Fixed Expenses, Gas, Groceries, Household and Unforeseen) I Set my budget each month to the amount I’ve allocated to myself. I often go over in some categories, but I have enough buffer in Unallocated that it’s not a problem. For things like Petty Cash and of course savings I use Add so that those balances will accrue rather than reset.
I don’t use a “borrowing from next month” philosophy anymore because our Unallocated funds are well over a month’s budget now (thanks GoodBudget!!)
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I use Add for all of my envelopes so that I know I am filling them with a fixed about each month. Every couple of months, I’ll go through and transfer between envelopes if there are some that are too full or too empty. I’m noticing a pattern with a particular envelope, I’ll go and edit my budget.
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Becky’s method is exactly what I do 
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Thanks for your responses. Becky, I like your technique. That’s what I’ll do for the time being. Hopefully soon I’ll have an unallocated cushion like Tiffany, and then I’ll switch to set.
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If I want to only use this for spedning money, and reset my bank balance each month to match my budget for the month, how would i do that? I’m not matching my actual bank balance, just changing in in goodbudget to the amount i allowcate myself to spend for the month.
If you want to be able to “borrow” from the next month or roll over any leftover money, use the Add function. If you just want to start with a specific amount each month, choose Set.
Since your bank balance isn’t important to you, you can ignore it and you’ll just have a very negative Unallocated and Account balance.
Hope that helps!
I would like the ability to Add if the existing balance of an envelope is positive and Set if it is negative. So I can rollover any leftover money but start afresh and not carry forward debts / borrowings when I overspend. I’m not sure how to term this though. What would you call it? 
I don’t think you could automate this, but one workaround might be to do a manual Fill from Available at the end of the month/budget period wherein you would Set any negative envelopes to 0 and Add 0 to everything else. (Conversely just transfer between Available and the negative envelope(s) to get them to 0.) Then on the first day of the next budget period, use Add for all the envelopes—effectively building on those with a carry-over balance and “setting” the ones that were zero. That’s a big extra step but would accomplish the goal.
Another manual solution would be to use Add for all your envelopes, then adjust the actual Fill based on the balance just prior. For example, if you were (-12.50) and you added 100, the new starting balance would be just 87.50. You can open the Fill after it’s posted and increase the amount to add 112.50 which brings you back to your budgeted target.
Curious to see what other folks are doing!
Ah no sorry. I meant I would like the Developers to introduce this as a feature 
Thanks for the detailed response though!
Ah! You want this post then 
(Want to suggest a feature or report an issue with Goodbudget?)
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I may be the only person who abuses GB this way, but my monthly fills involve two separate Fill actions. The first is a Fill from Available which closes out the ending month and “Set” all the monthly envelopes and any negative envelopes to zero, sweeping any surplus or deficit to my Reserve savings envelope. I start every month with a clean slate with all existing dollars allocated to longer term envelopes.
Next, I do a single massive Fill from New Income for the total of all paychecks expected in the coming month. Everything in this fill is (usually) an “Add”. This tops off all the monthly envelopes right at the beginning so there’s no problems later trying to divvy up individual paychecks across groceries and bills and miscellaneous, etc, and I can always compare my envelope balances to the little tick marks and know if we’re ahead or behind in actual spending for an envelope
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That’s awesome! I had no idea you could do this in this way. I used to just track if I go under or over budget in my notes each month. Just so I understand if I toggle the button to “add” in groceries it will just rollover when the new month occurs?
Also, what if I choose that month to have my extra money go into savings instead of rollover, how do I do that?
I think you’d have to do that manually, with envelope transfers. If you fill from new income you can designate the remainder envelope, but I don’t think you can do that here.
Could you clarify exactly what is the “Add” and “Set” feature?
If you Add money to an envelope, it will add exactly that much regardless of the starting balance. That may mean you have more or less than your budgeted amount in the envelope, but it will never use more than you’ve allocated. If you choose Set, it will take whatever is necessary to make your envelope match the set amount even if that’s more than you budgeted.
For example,
An Entertainment envelope has a budget of 250.00. This month you’ve used 50.00, leaving 200.00 in the envelope. If you Add, you’ll have 450.00 after the fill (the 200.00 remaining plus the new 250.00). Some people call this a rollover.
If you choose Set, then only 50.00 will be added so that the envelope is again at the budgeted amount of 250.00. This is more like “topping off”.
Another example:
If you’re overdrawn/red in an envelope and choose Add, you’ll have less than a full month’s budget after the fill. This lets you “borrow from the future” and still come out even over time. If instead you choose Set, the Fill will take more money from Available in order to get things squared away which may leave you with a shortfall.
I think most people use a blend of Sets and Adds depending on the envelopes’ purposes and how you want money to accrue or reset.